


Only Guaranteed Loyalty

by CloudDreamer



Series: Demon Eyes [15]
Category: Dr Carmilla (Musician), Once Upon a Time (In Space) - The Mechanisms (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Hugs, Immortality, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:15:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23642929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer
Summary: The Toy Soldier is the only thing she cannot break, no matter what, and safety is the same thing as love when it comes to someone as old as she is.Title from “Self-Fulfilling Prophecy” by Maria Mena.
Relationships: Dr Carmilla & The Toy Soldier
Series: Demon Eyes [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698556
Comments: 7
Kudos: 26
Collections: Stowaways' Shenanigans





	Only Guaranteed Loyalty

Belonging

The Toy Soldier is the only one she trust herself around, and that’s because it isn’t real at all. Carmilla rests her head on its lap, feeling the stiff fabric of King Cole’s uniforms over hard wooden skin. There’s no warmth to its touch, but she’s okay with that. After all, she’s always hot. Even in the vastness of space, her body burns her from the inside out. 

It runs its fingers through her hair, a repetitive movement that doesn’t change at all. She compares it to all the people who have held her tenderly over the years, and she finds it is the only consistency. It sings her stories of wars without meaning and slaughter without consequence, and somehow, this is her lullaby. 

They sit on a bench together in the dark rain. Her eye is closed, and the Toy Soldier’s doll-like features never change, always open. Always watching. Most people who pass by see the uniform and move a bit quicker. Some check twice, confused to see what they assume must be one of the King’s perfect soldiers holding someone so tenderly, but when they see Carmilla in more detail, they keep moving. She doesn’t see the pattern. She hears it instead, in the thrum of feet against cobblestone paths and the difference in the rate of the rain against their umbrellas. 

The weight of her against its lap is enough to bruise most types of humans, and those on this planet, with its weaker than average gravity, would be broken by it. It keeps one hand on her ukulele, protecting it from fools, and she wonders if she hears it creak. Sometimes, on nights when she’s hungrier than she realized or when a performance pushes her so sharply into the present that she lets her strength get away from her, her instruments make that sound. The instruments she designed with all the engineering know-how from across the universe from all across time with the intent to make something that lasts. 

It always smiles. No matter what she does, it smiles. It will tell her she is good. She knows deep down that it isn’t real, that it loves everything and everyone equally, but it has been so long since she’s heard those words. So long since she’s let herself feel without the constant reminder of how fragile everything is. She cannot fail the Toy Soldier. She cannot hurt it. She cannot break its heart, because it doesn’t have one. 

The rain falls an inky black and runs down the Toy Soldier’s face, dripping onto her. It’ll take weeks to wash out of her hair, assuming she doesn’t get drenched again, which is why most around here don’t bother trying too hard. Radios blare in the distance, talking about the war effort with system this or system that. It’s interchangeable. Their King doesn’t want unity. He doesn’t even want conquest for the sake of conquest. Perhaps he did, once upon a time, but the hunger has long since died out. He is simply scared of who he is without violence. It is there in the speech he gives but does not write. 

She listens, and she hears her younger self, desperately justifying her own actions. The hunger, the hunt, it’s all she is sometimes and waking out of that living dream where every time she breaks, she feels right, feels fulfilling, is always hard. She remembers her tears. She remembers apologies to the dead and the broken and oaths she’s long since given up on swearing. So Carmilla empathizes. She even pities him. But she will not save him, not when she watches that same pain on the face of every Rose Red she slays for the Rebellion. 

He does not deserve to be saved. 

The Toy Soldier tells her she is good. And maybe that’s enough.


End file.
